The Pope Who Would Be King

February 15, 2018
A bulky but readable history of the last leader of the Papal States.Pio Nono, or Pius IX, was one of the architects of the modern Catholic Church, the pontiff who forged the doctrine of papal infallibility while making some decidedly fallible choices on the front of worldly politics. According to Pulitzer Prize winner Kertzer (Social Science/Brown Univ.; The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, 2014, etc.), the pope had reasonably humane inclinations but not much sense of the power politics of the day. He found himself in an uncomfortable alliance with France while facing off against the nationalist forces that, inspired by Garibaldi's red shirts, would forge a unified country out of a collection of rival city-states and principalities. One legacy of Pius IX's time is the tiny enclave of Vatican City, surrounded by an Italy that, nominally Catholic, does not suffer much political interference from it. That tradition reflects on the fraught relationship with Italy's first king, Victor Emmanuel, who died early in his reign. As Kertzer writes, "the Catholic press made much of this evidence of divine punishment, although it might have made more of it had the elderly Pius IX not died four weeks later." Though broadly criticized in his time, the pope, a hero of conservatives today, was elevated to sainthood during John Paul's papacy. The cardinal who guided Pius IX in political matters has not fared so well, Kertzer notes; while attempting to preserve the pope's 1,000-year-old kingdom, he enriched himself and his family while allegedly maintaining a series of mistresses. In the end, writes the author, the old papacy was a victim of the Enlightenment, which had further implications when the Second Vatican Council removed some of the last of its medieval vestiges.A touch too long but a pleasingly encompassing view of the hapless papal reign that inspired Kertzer's early book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortaro (1997).

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 26, 2018
Kertzer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Pope Pius XI (The Pope and Mussolini), expertly captures the tension of a deeply devout population, loyal to their church but receptive to the stirrings of both liberalism and nationalism. When Giovanni Mastai Meretti was unexpectedly elected pope in 1846, throngs of adoring Romans heralded his rise, convinced that the humble and fair-minded archbishop of Spoleto would loosen the screws of theocracy in the Papal States and usher in a golden era for Italy. The first months of Pius IX’s rule seemed to bear out this vision, but before long political upheaval forced him to flee—and after his return, chastened and mistrustful of democracy, “he pope’s embrace of a medieval vision of society could not have been clearer.” At the end of his papacy, Pius IX presided over “the death throes of the popes’ thousand-year kingdom... the death of a doctrine of faith that had a huge impact on the course of Western civilization.” From the arch-conservative secretary of state of the Papal States, Giacomo Antonelli (who oversaw daily affairs), to the avatar of Italian independence, Giuseppe Mazzini (a leading dissident fighting against clerical rule and for a united Italy), Kertzer brings to life a cast of characters whose divergent voices arose from a new Europe. A consummate storyteller, Kertzer blends academic rigor with fluid, energetic prose, and the result will satisfy specialists while entertaining those who might otherwise expect to be bored stiff by a volume of church history.

Starred review from February 1, 2018
Defying Prince Metternich's declaration that a liberal pope was a conceptual impossibility, Pius IX begins his exceptionally long nineteenth-century pontifical reign as a progressive ruler over Rome and the Papal Statesgranting amnesty to political prisoners, constructing rural railroads, replacing clerics with qualified laymen in governmental posts, even enshrining the people's rights in a new constitution. But in this probing chronicle, Kertzer recounts how Pius IX ineluctably comes to confirm, not defy, Metternich's perspective on papal liberality. Readers witness the transformation of Pius IX whendismayed that his reforms have stoked rather than satisfied the people's appetite for emancipationhe begins to shield the church's temporal powers from further challenge. Kertzer unfolds the tense drama when the newly reactionary pope faces such popular hostility that he furtively flees Rome after hearing the cheers of crowds lauding the assassin who has murdered his chief administrator. The drama intensifies when the pope later reenters Rome backed by French and Austrian forces, crushing the hopes of both Italian nationalists and French republicans as he restores the church's theocratic prerogatives. Diverse personalities, regimes, and philosophies come into focus as formative influences on the unpredictable evolution of church, city, nation, and continent. Essential reading for students of modern European history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2018

Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Kertzer (Dupee Univ. Professor of Social Science, Brown Univ.) has written several books about the papacy, including The Pope and Mussolini. His new work focuses on Pope Pius IX (1792-1878), who led during a time of major transition and experienced a period of exile from Rome. While this deals with Pius IX and his time as Pope, it has a broader emphasis on the transition toward modern Europe that occurred during his reign. When Pius IX first became Pope, he was a key leader both in religion and in politics in the Papal States. During his final years, the Pope was still a religious leader, but his political authority did not extend beyond papal grounds. After detailing his popularity and eventual exile, Kertzer recounts how Pius guided his key Catholic leaders, after they had returned to Rome, to reinstate full papal rule there and punish those who turned against him. VERDICT Readers interested in religious history or specifically Catholic religious history, will find this book to be an excellent resource.--John Jaeger, Johnson Univ.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2017

Pulitzer Prize winner for The Pope and Mussolini, Brown professor Kertzer, an expert on the Vatican and modern Italian history, turns to Pope Pius IX, elected in 1846 and the longest-reigning pope ever. At first, Pius IX sought to counter anger at the Church's corruption with liberalizing tendencies, but revolution throughout Europe compelled him to defend the Church's rights. A crucial, game-changing time in European history.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.